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Saturday, 26 October 2013

The Gathering Storm

I, like most of the population of southern England, am living in an area covered by the Amber Wind Warning, ready for the storm on Sunday/Monday.Is it just me, or do the words "Amber" and "Wind" just bring to mind baked beans? It's probably just me, isn't it?Anyway, enough with the childish fart-gags and on to business. Yes, we have an Amber Wind Warning and a Yellow Rain Warning here. I am hoping the Met Office is wrong for two reasons:

I Don't want a tree through my roof on Sunday night

I have just booked three tickets to see Despicable Me 2 (Carrot-Girl's first trip to the pictures!) on Monday morning - now if you are a fan of the Kermode & Mayo Film Review Show (and if you aren't, you should be) you'll now totally understand why I'm sniggering about fart jokes while I'm writing this, as their commentary about DM2 included an actually Minion's Fart Gun in the studio

But, this is meant to be a serious post! Enough with the Fart Gun!Last time we had a major storm in the UK was 1987 and the thing that made it so devastating was the time of year it happened - mid-late October - because the trees were all still in leaf. And it's now late October and the trees are all still in leaf.This is the view from the back windows of my house

And this is the view from the front:

Pretty tree infested. So I am taking some steps to get prepared and I thought it might help to share them. Please add your own in the comments box below.

Charge your phones

Have you got wireless landline phones? They won't work if the power goes off, so, if you have one, dig out your old plug-in phone from the loft/cupboard under the stairs and check it still works

Check your torches and get spare batteries. Carrot-Man is a sucker for those Gazillion-Candle-Power-Mega-Torches, so his job today will be to find them and charge them

Got a battery-powered radio? Dig it out, check it works and buy spare batteries. If the power goes off, there's no TV or plug-in radios

Candles & matches

Longlife milk

Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers (or is that just me?)

Blankets - two reasons: a) No power, no central heating b) no power, the freezer goes off, so you can wrap it in blankets to keep the cold in for longer & stop your food going off. Once the power is off, don't open the freezer door.

Follow your local police, the Met Office & local BBC on twitter for immediate updates (assuming you have power or charged up smartphone)

Put away all your garden furniture and dismantle your garden trampoline and any other kids toys

That should get us started. In the meantime, I am hoping the wind blows hard-ish for the next 48 hours and blows a lot of the leaves off the trees before the storm arrives, as I really don't want to miss Despicable Me 2!

Thank you! To be honest Carrot-girl is more excited about the fact we're going on the bus than anything else! It's quite hard to explain what the cinema is to a 4 year old "like a really big TV in the dark" is the best I've come up with so far